The present invention relates to programmer/timers for appliances and particularly to electromechanical programmer/timers employed in clothes washers, dishwashers, and clothes dryers. Electromechanical programmer/timers for these types of appliances typically utilize a rotary cam drum for sequentially actuating a plurality of switches which control the various machine functions during the program cycle. Electromechanical programmer/timers of this type have found widespread acceptance in household appliances because of their low manufacturing costs and accurate repeatability and reliability. Programmer/timers of this type commonly employ a subfractional horsepower timing motor which operates a cam advance mechanism either of the direct gear reduction variety or of the ratchet and pawl type indexing mechanism.
In recent times, it has become desirable to provide improved rapid user selection of portion of the program cycle in appliances while retaining the advantages of an electromechanical programmer/timer.
The more commonly used electromechanical appliance programmer/timers have a user-rotatable knob attached to the main cam shaft which enables the user to rotate the cam to a desired position for a selected portion or a full revolution of the cam drum for the program cycle.
Typically, manually actuated programmer/timers have the shaft to which the knob is attached axially movable to provide actuation and deactuation of the line power switch controlling current flow to the cam advance motor and to all of the appliance load function switches. This arrangement has proven to be user friendly and low in manufacturing cost, and has found widespread acceptance in household appliances.
It has thus been desired to retain the appearance, feel, and method of actuation for household appliance programmer/timers and yet provide a rapid advance function in the programmer/timer to enable the user to select automatically a portion of the program without the need to manually rotate the entire cam drum for positioning the cam to provide the desired machine functions.